We want to go deep.

I just spend 95 minutes listening to Howard Stern interview Sarah Jessica Parker and I didn’t hear the whole thing. How did he keep my interest in a short attention span economy?

That’s a lie. We’ve just got incredible shit detectors. We want nothing but great, we’ve got endless time for great, we’re pushing the button for great and when we find it…WE STAY THERE!

How else to explain the binge-watching phenomenon. People want more, you’ve just got to serve them the right thing.

Howard Stern used to be crippled by terrestrial radio, beholden to time breaks and advertisers, a format so moribund there’s no wonder there are no breakthroughs. He went to Sirius for the freedom, little did we know he would become the new Barbara Walters, at even greater length. You change the format and you’ve got no idea what will result. The 33 1/3 LP gave us the concept album, but that’s an expired paradigm, who can utilize the new distribution media to their advantage? So far, only Drake amongst the superstars. He knows it’s about a steady spew of product, that the relationship is key, that it’s not about spending time reaching the last customer on earth but satiating the core, who will become indoctrinated and spread the word.

I watched “Square Pegs.” Loved the breakthrough in “Honeymoon In Vegas.” Really enjoyed “Sex and the City.” I’m not infatuated with Sarah Jessica, yet I want to know who everybody is, their victories, their struggles, we’re all in this together and we’re looking for clues that we’re all right, that we’re all screwed up and have more questions than answers. She talked about being intimated by true movie stars, that she’s anxious for two weeks on a new flick. That made me feel better about my own spilkes. Everybody’s projecting an image of being calm and collected, but that’s a fraud. We’re all uptight.

So as the usual suspects have become about the hit and run, selling us in ever more bite-sized portions, the winners in the new economy are those who stretch it out. This is why TV has eclipsed movies. We want to go deeper. Ad rates for link-bait keep going down, but if you want to advertise on the Bill Simmons podcast, if you want to tie up with the winners, you’re going to pay a multiple, because their audience tunes in, their listeners care.

Sure, you have to build trust. Sure, you can’t wander and expect people to follow you willy-nilly. But if you’re a pro and have built an audience it will follow you anywhere. And it is about the work and not the penumbra. We’ve been sold social media nonsense. That everybody’s a brand and if you’re not advertising, spreading the word, you’ll never make it. No, it’s about doing the work and letting your fans spread the word.

We live in an alienating society, with too many marketing messages. We’re overwhelmed. We want to be soothed. And nothing soothes us more than long form content. As society goes ever faster, we want to slow down, we want to dig in deep. Wander into the wilderness and we may follow you, as opposed to trying to give us what we want, you usually have no idea what we want. I had no interest in the secondary players in Howard’s canon, then I listened and got to know them and now I worry about Richard Christy’s drinking, Sal’s marriage, focus groups will never tell you this, they’re snapshots, whereas truth evolves over the long term, we’re malleable characters, who knows what will grip us.

Mastery is everything. We want to practice, we want to get good, we want to know. You can’t do much with a few bits and bites. But when you build an edifice, you can live in it.

This is the essence of Howard Stern’s breakthrough, the long form interview. And every time I decry that he’s just part of the endless promotional gravy train he’ll elicit nuggets from those I thought I didn’t care about. Like Kate Hudson’s biological dad not knowing her children, having no real contact with her at all. You don’t have to be famous to understand this, only human.

Somehow Howard has figured out the future. And he morphed to do it. Today’s show barely resembles the shows of yore. The Sybian’s been banished. And this is less about cleaning up than evolving. You experiment, you build on your skills, you find out what works, you get comfortable. And when you’ve put in the hours you’ll find people care.

That’s the true long tail. Not the money involved, but that there are so many rabbit holes with avid fans. The internet has allowed us to go deep. Some are getting rich, others are just getting the naches. Nothing makes you feel better than helping people. And when you display your wisdom online…

Your life is complete.

Don’t expect anybody to care at first. But when you get the hang of it, when you get good, after not giving up, most people give up, after pivoting to what works, you’ll find you’ve built an audience that will follow you anywhere.

Because they want to know you.

Phoniness is dead.

Depth is everything.

Display your hopes, dreams and warts. Your story is important if you want to make it in today’s media world. We not only want you to report the news, we want to know who you are. The world is shrinking. You can’t hold it at arm’s length. Sure, you move towards the center and you get burned by the heat, i.e. the hate, but every reward comes with a downside.

They’re jealous of your success. Which you toiled for years for.

Ignore the naysayers. Soldier on. Give me something I can sink my teeth into.

I’m hungry.

He needs a hit.

This is what happens when you put commerce in front of career, when you’re too inured to the old ways, when you try to have one foot in the old world and one foot in the new.

You fail.

Oldsters love Garth. He tours at low ticket prices to satisfied fans. It’s just that he’s left the public discourse. And Garth cares. He’s not Bob Dylan speaking not a word to the press, nor Def Leppard and Foreigner happily making their way through sheds every summer… Garth is a self-satisfied star who speaks of himself in the third person who believes he’s entitled to be front and center at all times.

But that only happens if you progress, if you move on, if you make a hit record and have it available EVERYWHERE!

The enemy is obscurity. You can put out an album and it can be over in a weekend. And that which happens in the morning doesn’t make the evening news, assuming someone’s tuned in at all. It’s what have you done for me lately, and we only care about that which rises above and access is everything, he who restricts availability ultimately loses.

Wouldn’t Garth want everybody checking out his new stuff when the buzz is hot?

Obviously not.

And whatever promo/hype Amazon is promising, the sales site is not where music lives, not now, maybe ever. How can a guy so caught up in the past be so invested in the future? If Amazon triumphs in music, it will be a long time coming.

Country fans love CDs and downloads. Streaming hasn’t been embraced in quantity yet. It will be. So, if you’re Jason Aldean and keeping your music off Spotify you might win today, but not tomorrow. We’ve got a whole business that looks at today and thinks it matters. If you believe Adele will be focusing on sales with her next release, “29,” you’re delusional. The marketplace moves. You need to move with it.

Amazon could never compete in downloads. That market is owned by iTunes. Selling on Amazon instead of Apple is like keeping your material out of Wal-Mart, a place where Garth had a previous triumph. As for keeping albums intact… Garth, you made a deal with Sirius, when you’re driving do you stay on one station and one station only? Not unless it’s Howard Stern, no way.

So Garth just boxed himself out. By trying to do it his way instead of the fan’s way. There’s not a fan in creation who thinks Garth’s Amazon move is friendly. Did Garth miss Napster? The public rules now. People want it all and they want it at their fingertips everywhere they go. And Garth ignores this.

Keep acting like this Mr. Brooks and next time the media won’t even care about your new release. There will be no press at all. Like with all those old acts who can’t get arrested. Timothy B. Schmit put out a new album and the only reason I know is I saw it on Spotify, otherwise I’d have no idea it came out, and he was in the EAGLES!

Imagine stumbling upon a good Garth track in your playlist. That’s how music is spread these days. But it won’t happen, the sound won’t go viral, because Garth’s music is unavailable. It’s like going to war with no rifle, how do you expect to win?

Radio!

But in a nation that’s rejecting the NFL on television how powerful is music radio anyway? At best it’s a starting point, someplace the conversation gets ignited. But today tracks drop on Spotify and Apple Music and blow up from there, deejays are the last to know.

As for Amazon doing this exclusive…

Reminds me of “Hit Men,” Dick Asher gets rid of indie promo and everybody else swoops in and pays. Want to gain a toehold, provide a better service, exclusives just piss people off and keep the masses from subscribing. But exclusives pay, and the artists can’t keep their hands out of the cookie jar.

But the payments hurt your career, you have a very brief window to gain traction, don’t mess it up. And the real money is in the live experience, and you want a giant lasso that ties up all, you want to close the looky-loos, but Garth Brooks just kept them out of the tent.

I’m sick of the aw-shucks act. I’m sick of everybody giving Garth a pass. He’s a self-centered mercenary prick who just can’t do the right thing. Who wants to do it his way as opposed to our way. Whose hits are in the rearview mirror.

Give me Luke Bryan any day. Who puts out themed EPs in between albums. Give me Kenny Chesney, who sells out stadiums. Give me Sturgill Simpson, who speaks the truth.

Don’t give me old dad who wants to go back to the last century and is only dragged into the recent past reluctantly.

Hey Garth, do you still use a flip-phone?

Ever been in a Tesla?

Then why are you releasing music like it’s 2003 in a bizarro universe where Amazon dominates?

Damned if I know.

How do it know?

I left Sherman Oaks at 3:15. Got to Ojai at 4:37. Right to the minute. There was unforeseen traffic getting on to the 101. But once I hit Woodland Hills I was going 80. How did the machine calculate for that?

Not that the app is always right. I had to go to the doctor this morning and it said 23 minutes and I left with plenty of time but they were cleaning the HOV lane and I was almost late. So, depend upon the app or not?

Most people use the built-in Apple Maps. It’s the default. You can’t make Google the default, even though I find it more fully-featured and accurate. But I cannot exit this paragraph without writing about Waze, otherwise I’ll be inundated with e-mail. My problem with Waze is… I CAN’T HEAR IT!

There you have it.

I’ve got a top-notch stereo in my car. There’s nothing I like more than blasting it. But if I have to listen for directions I can’t play the Sirius, which is all I do. I guess if I had a more modern machine with Carplay or some other integration the music would know to go down. But driving a 2005… My goal is to never buy another car, to go straight to autonomous vehicles called up on demand. Not sure I’ll make it, but I’m so over the expensive iron paradigm. The truth is, you can barely move in Los Angeles. You can buy a Porsche, but you’ll never employ its characteristics. Except late at night, that’s when I push my machine to the limit.

But every once in a while, when there’s tons of traffic, when I need to get somewhere on time, I utilize the navigation app. And Waze… It takes me to places I’ve never been before. Funny how you can discover new streets in your own backyard. The only problem is too often it has me making lefts against traffic. And everybody’s app has a switch to minimize this, but despite utilizing the latest iteration mine doesn’t.

But it’s like being in a pinball machine. I agreed to meet my friend at the train station in Culver City, for a ride to Pasadena, a supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again. If only public transportation were faster in L.A., if only you could get a seat, never mind a parking place nearby, that’s why I went to Culver City, there’s a giant lot, whereas nearby my house… I’ve either got to take my life in my hands walking through Santa Monica’s seediest neighborhood or jump on Uber for a very short ride. I’ll walk during the day. At night, I don’t think so.

So, I’m making turns off Olympic, driving through Cheviot Hills, getting on the freeway for one exit. It’s fun.

But totally different from the way it used to be, when it came down to reading a map. I’m good at that, maybe it’s my Boy Scout training, maybe it’s my native sense of direction, but those are irrelevant attributes today, now you just pull up the app.

I remember driving cross-country back in ’74. Calling my parents from a pay phone inside Old Faithful Lodge, by the Jellystone geyser. They hadn’t heard from me in weeks. Nobody’s disconnected from their parents that long anymore, and my present Verizon plan has unlimited talk and text for twenty bucks, can you believe that? I remember withdrawing $14 from my savings account to pay my dad back for a long distance call to my friend in Kansas City, two days before I was supposed to fly and visit him. My dad was pissed, couldn’t I wait?

But no one waits anymore.

And no one’s lost anymore, unless they lose service.

And here’s where I tell you you need to be on Verizon and here’s where you e-mail me and tell me I’m wrong. And I can cite surveys, but they won’t sway you. We live in a fact free society wherein our cellphone company is a badge of honor. But still, Verizon has the best coverage, not only voice, but data, and today data is everything, I have LTE all over Vail whereas I text people on AT&T and T-Mobile and they don’t get it for hours.

So, I drove up the 101 pushing the buttons. Howard was talking about Ronnie and on No Shoes Radio Sammy Hagar was playing an acoustic take of “Eagles Fly,” my favorite track by him.

And on Fox they were talking about Hillary’s e-mails and on MSNBC they were talking about Trump’s peccadilloes.

And I’m cruising along in the Indian summer weather looking for Highway 33.

And I’m worried about missing the turn, but I pick up the phone and see the blue dot is aligned with the designated route on Google Maps and everything is copacetic.

It’s a brave new world we live in. One where we count on so much that didn’t even exist mere years ago.

But one thing’s for sure, putting the pedal to the metal, twisting and turning on the California highways, it makes me feel alive and free.

And that’s what we all want to be.

P.S. What the hell, here’s the definitive report on wireless service, read it and make your own decision:

The Best Wireless Carriers

 

He was so NICE!

The highlight of last year occurred…

When I was at this surgeon’s house to see Leon Bridges, a benefit for MusiCares. I was not planning to go, but Lisa said it would end by 9:15, and there was no way I was gonna fall asleep before that.

You see the next morning I was going to be on the Howard Stern WrapUp Show.

So, we’re hanging, it’s me, Lisa, Michael McDonald and Jimmy Kimmel. And Michael got distracted and there was a moment of silence so I told Jimmy I was going to do his buddy’s radio show the next morning, he and Howard are best friends. And Jimmy looked at me quizzically and said “They can do that?” And I told him they’d sent me a suitcase and you hooked it up to the internet and Jimmy said…ARE YOU A MEMBER OF THE WACK PACK?

And then Michael re-entered the conversation.

And I’m standing there thinking Jimmy doesn’t understand, he thinks I’m some oddball and I must set the record straight.

So when a break in the conversation occurred, I told Jimmy I was gonna be on because I wrote this newsletter that Howard gets.

And Jimmy leans back, looks me in the eye and says…YOU’RE BOB LEFSETZ! HOWARD TALKS ABOUT YOU ALL THE TIME!

It’s the little things that keep you going. Money counts, but experiences like this are priceless.

Still, Howard’s a noted recluse, and the last thing I want to do is come across as a creepy fan, so…

I was anxious about the interaction, assuming I’d get to meet him at all. But when we got off the elevator, Steve Brandano told us that Howard wanted to say hi, just before the WrapUp Show began.

And they put you in a green room with your name on the door and it’s funny, being on the Stern Show is the epitome of cool. The mainstream media writes about Jimmy Fallon, but he’s a kiss-ass in a world where people are struggling to get by and only Howard speaks the truth.

And after Bababooey came in to discuss Oldchella, I saw Ronnie Mund through the door. I asked him if he could let me into the bathroom, the same one Beetlejuice crapped all over. I said, “Ronnie…” Like we were old buddies, like we saw each other every day.

And then Steve said to get ready, Robin was winding up the news, the show could end in five minutes…or maybe twenty.

It was closer to twenty when Felice and I were escorted into the inner sanctum. It’s dark, Howard’s behind a bank of monitors, and he looks me in the eye and SMILES!

I immediately notice the dental work, perfect, unlike Gary’s caps.

And I’m wondering, how do I start?

But Howard did. He wanted to know whether I wrote in advance, and after telling him no, that it was all based upon instant  inspiration, I apologized for there being too much. But then Howard said he kept them in a folder and he read them all and he’s still smiling and I don’t want to be his friend, I don’t need to be his friend, and I know famous people are different than you and me, but he was so open and warm so…

We continued to talk.

About being sixty. About focusing on what we’re good at.

And then Howard started giving me advice. Well, not really, he wondered if I ever thought of including images, spicing up the mailing, and after indicating that I’d just recently considered this…

Steve came in and said we had to go, the WrapUp Show was gonna start…

I was worried we wouldn’t connect, that there wouldn’t be enough to say, but it was free and easy and stimulating, like someone from summer camp I really connected with, I was feeling all warm and fuzzy and…

Then I was in the studio for the WrapUp Show. Where there were six of us around the table, I never knew it took so many people to make radio.

And we talked about Oldchella. I asked John about “Hit ’em with the Hein.” Gary talked about skipping his best friend’s wedding because Howard was doing a pay-per-view and…

I felt like I could stay there all day, like I wanted to bring my sleeping bag and camp out. It was so much FUN!

Grow old enough and you realize it’s solely about people, the hang, being a member of the group. First and foremost, working for Howard Stern is A BLAST!

We conversed for forty minutes, took a couple of phone calls, I did most of the talking, getting to stretch out just like a guest with Howard and then…

It was done. I cut a promo, we went out to reception and…

I was walking on air.

So what did I learn?

That if you work hard enough and long enough, people will recognize you and opportunities will arise. Not only with Howard, but myself…I’M ON THE SHOW!

Next, that you can never pre-judge a celebrity. They’re all just people, and until you’ve been face to face, you’ve got no idea who they really are.

And third, that everybody there thinks they’re playing for the Yankees, and Howard feels a responsibility to take care of them, to make sure everybody gets paid, even though he hates having to be their father.

Oh, and all the crazy interaction happens on-air. There are no private conversations, Howard doesn’t ridicule Gary off mic, only on.

And there’s a whole subculture.

And you may not care, but so many do. Howard Stern eclipses the vaunted Fallon in listeners. He’s the number one promotion outlet, not only because he has an audience, but because his listeners are passionate, people partake, otherwise why would I have bought the Lenny Dykstra book?

And to tell you the truth, I’m still high. We finished five hours ago but…

I’ve been in the zone ever since. Kinda like the first time you had sex. You jumped a hurdle, it felt so good, and the first thing that crossed your mind was…

I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN!